GreenBizCafehttp://www.greenbizcafe.com.au
Talking about all the changes happening in the world from a small business person's point of viewTue, 21 Jul 2015 00:56:17 +0000en-UShourly1Biotech to Make Fuel from Steel Mill’s Waste COhttp://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5926
http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5926#commentsTue, 21 Jul 2015 00:56:17 +0000http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5926 Read more »]]>Biotechnology developed in New Zealand by LanzaTech is to be installed at ArcelorMittal’s steel mill in Ghent, Belgium, to capture carbon monoxide and convert it into ethanol.

The technology uses a customised Clostridium microbe, originally found in a rabbit’s gut, to convert the carbon monoxide.

Approximately 50% of the carbon used in the chemistry of steelmaking leaves the process as carbon monoxide. Although carbon monoxide is not itself a greenhouse gas, in steel mills it is usually burned, releasing carbon dioxide.

ArcelorMittal is by far world’s largest steel producer with steel mills in 19 countries. It expects that its Ghent plant will eventually produce 56 million litres of ethanol a year. The ethanol will be sold as a biofuel.

If the Ghent project is successful, ArcelorMittal plans to roll it out across the company’s steel mills worldwide.

LanzaTech was founded in New Zealand but moved to Illinois in 2014 after receiving a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy and tax credits from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

]]>http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=59260New Material Releases Stored Heat on Demandhttp://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5923
http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5923#commentsMon, 20 Jul 2015 07:46:22 +0000http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5923 Read more »]]>Researchers at the University of Tokyo have discovered a new type of ceramic material which stores heat energy for a prolonged period and releases the stored heat energy on demand by application of weak pressure.

The material, called stripe-type-lambda-trititanium-pentoxide which, despite its name, is a simple titanium oxide composed of abundant elements. It can absorb and release a large amount of heat energy (230 kJ L). Applying a weak pressure of 60 mega Pascal to the material induces a phase transition to beta-trititanium-pentoxide, releasing the stored heat energy.

Besides direct application of heat, heat energy can be stored by passing an electric current through the material or irradiating it with light, enabling the repeated absorption and release of heat energy by a variety of methods

The heat-storage ceramic is expected to be suitable for use in solar heat power generation systems and also has possibilities for use in advanced electronic devices such as pressure-sensitive sheets, reusable heating pads, pressure-sensitive conductivity sensors, electric current driven type resistance random access memory and optical memory.

]]>http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=59230US Army Claims Solar Cell Breakthroughhttp://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5725
http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5725#commentsWed, 08 Jul 2015 08:26:07 +0000http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5725 Read more »]]>U.S. Army researchers at the Redstone Arsenal have developed a new type of solar panel which they say is a significant breakthrough in solar energy production being much thinner, more efficient and cheaper than current panels.

Most current solar panel currently are made of pure silicon. The wavelength of light that can be absorbed and converted into electricity by silicon is exceedingly narrow compared to the full spectrum of light. By inserting layers of noble metals, such as silver and gold, between various semiconductor layers, the researchers have produced panels that use a far wider range of wavelengths.

The new panels generate the same amount of energy regardless of the angle that sunlight is striking them -eliminating the need for careful positioning or for expensive sun-traking mountings.

The added metal layers, also allow the panels to be tuned to reflect away the harmful ultraviolet and infrared rays.

Despite the extra layers, the new panels have a combined thickness of only a few hundred nanometers – about 1/1,000 th of the thickness of current panels. The reduced thickness will result in a savings in materials and cost.

]]>http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=57250MIT Researcher Claims Breakthrough in Battery Manufacturinghttp://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5728
http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5728#commentsMon, 29 Jun 2015 08:42:43 +0000http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5728 Read more »]]>Yet-Ming Chiang, a materials science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who founded the lithium-ion battery company, A123, which showed great promise but ended up filing for bankruptcy in 2012, has developed a new process which he says will cut the cost of battery production by a factor of ten and halve the cost of the batteries.

The lithium ion battery was first commercialized in 1991 and, although there have been significant improvements in the battery itself, the manufacturing process has not fundamentally changed.

The current process requires large, expensive factories. It starts with a wet ink of active materials, these are “glued” onto a thin metal foil, dried and then put it under extreme pressure. The pieces are then cut and assembled and a liquid electrolyte is added. The process takes place on a reel-to-reel manufacturing line that may be hundreds of metres long and takes up to 22 hours.

When researching flow batteries for a company called M24, Professor Chiang had graduate students make static lithium-ion batteries for comparison purposes. The team used the same liquid slurries as they had used in the flow battery to make the static cells. The static lithium-ion batteries worked so well that M24 abandoned work on flow batteries to focus on the new way of manufacturing lithium-ion batteries.

The researchers developed a way to make the electrodes without the glue-like binder. They reduced the number of separate materials layers from about 14 to just five. They reduced the amount of filler needed from 35% to 8% of the cell. And they dispensed entirely with the drying process by injecting the wet electrolyte into the cell from the start.

in the process, they improved the battery itself by making the electrodes four times thicker – which greatly increased the cells’ energy density.

24M is now seeking to scale up to production of a new machine that makes a cell every two to ten seconds. They hope that this will be available for sale in two years and would eventually be priced at around $11 million, compared with more than $100 million for current production facilities.

]]>http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=5728010 Years of Progress in Renewableshttp://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5722
http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5722#commentsFri, 19 Jun 2015 06:36:14 +0000http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5722 Read more »]]>In its 2015 “Global Status Report”, REN21, the global renewable energy policy network, has summarised the increase in renewable energy capacity in the 10 years from 2004 to 2014.

Wind power capacity increased from 48 gigawatts to 370 gigawatts. Bio-power capacity increased from less than 36 gigawatts to 93 gigawatts. And geothermal capacity increased from 8.9 to 12.8 gigawatts.

At the end of 2014, fossil fuels still accounted for 77.2% of global energy production. Hydro was 16.6% of the total with wind being 3.1% and bio-power 1.8%. Although 40 gigawatts of solar capacity was added in 2014, it is still less than 1% of the total.

China had the most renewable power generation capacity; leading the world in wind and hydro capacity. The United States led in geothermal and bio-power with Germany having the most solar capacity.

The report estimates that, at the end of 2014, there were 7,647,000 jobs directly or indirectly in renewable energy.

]]>http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=57220Owl Wing Design Could Make Wind Turbines Quieterhttp://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5707
http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5707#commentsTue, 16 Jun 2015 04:03:55 +0000http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5707 Read more »]]>Conservationists are concerned about the effects of the noise of wind turbines on wildlife and some people who live near turbines complain about their noise.

Researchers led by Nigel Peake at the University of Cambridge have turned to owls for ideas about how to reduce the noise. Owls are famously silent predators, able to surprise their prey thanks to their sound-damping wings.

Owls’ wings have two unique features that make them silent. Evenly spaced bristles along the width of the wings break up sound waves as an owl flies, preventing them from building up and producing noise. At the same time, a canopy of downy feathers reduces air pressure on the wings’ surface.

The research team added a number of fins that trail across and off the edge of the surface of an aerofoil. The fins replicate the owl’s evenly spaced bristles and also disrupt surface pressure on the aerofoil, reducing the sound waves it produces.

When the researchers tested the wings in a wind tunnel, they found that noise reduction worked best when the fins were close together – about 1 millimetre apart across the aerofoil.

The best-performing fins cut noise by a factor of 10 compared with finless aerofoils.

As well as making them quieter, the researchers believe that attaching fins to wind turbines might even help them to generate more energy. Currently, many wind turbines are artificially braked so that they don’t make too much noise. With the owl wing design, the turbines could run faster without getting louder.

]]>http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=57070Flexible, Stretchable Batteryhttp://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5705
http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5705#commentsFri, 12 Jun 2015 01:43:29 +0000http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5705 Read more »]]>A team of engineers at Arizona State University and Jinan University in China have redesigned the lithium-ion battery to fold, expand and contract, allowing it to stretch and expand to more than 150% of its compacted size even when being used.

The new design uses an extremely common battery and overcomes the tendency for the material to break and tear where it’s been folded and creased by using carefully calculated soft creases, limiting the chance of damage.

Stretchable batteries allow engineers to custom-fit batteries into moveable, flexible devices like a robot’s legs or a wristwatch bands.

]]>http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=57050New Roof Coating Keeps Roofs Much Coolerhttp://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5703
http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5703#commentsWed, 10 Jun 2015 01:10:06 +0000http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5703 Read more »]]>Scientists at the University of Technology Sydney have developed a coating which keeps roofs significantly cooler than the ambient air temperature, even under the most intense summer conditions.

Dr Angus Gentle and Emeritus Professor Geoff Smith reported that a roof with a “coated polymer stack” – a combination of specially chosen polyesters on a silver layer – remained 11ºC degrees or more colder than an existing state-of-the-art white roof nearby. The coating does this because it absorbs only 3% of incident sunlight while simultaneously strongly radiating heat at infrared wavelengths that are not absorbed by the atmosphere.

Professor Smith said that the surface maintained its high performance in all conditions. “Extensive dew formation is inevitable for a super cool roof and dew drops precipitate dirt. This roof site, being 25 metres above a busy city transit road, was a stern test. Results show that excellent thermal performance can be maintained.”

The materials used for the demonstration are available commercially and potentially suited to use on basic roofing.

The researchers believe that the development has major implications for reducing the heat load in urban areas and consequently cutting energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.

(Cross posted from Aussie Renewables.)

]]>http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=57030Cheaper, Silent, Bladeless Wind Turbineshttp://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5699
http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5699#commentsSun, 17 May 2015 04:33:06 +0000http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5699 Read more »]]>In 1940, the newly built Tacoma Narrows Bridge began to vibrate violently and soon collapsed in windy conditions. Ever since, engineers have focused on ways of stopping their structures vibrating in this way. Now, a group of Spanish engineers is working to harness the energy potential of vibrating structures.

Instead of using the wind to rotate the blades of a wind turbine, Vortex Bladeless uses pillars that shake back and forth from the vortices created by the movement of air around the structure.

Normally, such structure can only be optimized to oscillate at the specific frequencies caused by a particular wind speed, but Vortex Bladeless uses magnets to adjust the turbine on the fly to get the most from any wind speed. Once the structure starts vibrating, an alternator in the base converts the mechanical movement into electricity.

The company claims that its bladeless wind turbines are less expensive to manufacture, require much less maintenance, are totally silent and are safer for birds. On initial testing, individual bladeless turbines captured 30% less energy than conventional turbines but, because they can be located much closer together, a bladeless wind farm can have greater total output.

The company hopes to have 3 metre, 100 kilowatt turbine by the end of 2015, a 13 metre, 4 kilowatt turbine in 2016 and a 1 megawatt turbine within three years.

]]>http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?feed=rss2&p=56990“Refrigeration Battery” Can Cut Commercial Energy Usehttp://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5694
http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5694#commentsWed, 06 May 2015 04:21:48 +0000http://www.greenbizcafe.com.au/?p=5694 Read more »]]>Axiom Exergy, which specializes in providing energy saving solutions for large supermarkets and refrigerated warehouses, has developed a “refrigeration battery” which stores cooling for later use.

The battery plugs into existing cooling chiller systems and freezes water in a tank during off-peak periods at night. It then uses the cold to reduce cooling loads in the daytime, when the doors are being opened and closed and the load is highest.

Refrigeration costs make up more than half of a typical supermarket’s electricity bill. The Refrigeration Battery has the capacity to store energy for 6 to 12 hours which, according to Axiom Exergy, can cut peak electricity demand by as much 40%.

The Refrigeration Battery can also provide backup refrigeration for 6 to 12 hours, protecting supermarkets from business interruption risk and food spoilage costs caused by power outages.

The Refrigeration Battery can be retrofitted to existing commercial refrigeration systems without any modification.